Jun 11, 2008

Wimp, schmimp

News stories like this one tend to get me more riled than their stupidity deserves.

Apparently Mr Darcy's "real life" inspiration, James LeFroy, had the hide to NOT look like Colin Firth, the actor who would most famously portray the character over 200 years later.

Instead of being dark and dashing, he apparently had "frail" and "feminine" looks (because he had - gasp - fair hair and pale skin).

Now we'll bypass the fact that James LeFroy, from all accounts, was more of a Willoughby or Wickham-type character than a Darcy. We'll also bypass the fact that miniature paintings of this period are notorious for portraying an "ideal" version of the subject. We'll even bypass the frankly insulting suggestion that Austen had no author's imagination, and MUST have based her character on a living person.

What bugs me is that they're applying today's standards of beauty/masculinity to a person who existed before Nelson copped it sweet at Trafalgar. "Ooh, look at Jane Austen! She was in love with a big girly man! You like that Mr Darcy! Well, how does it feel now you know he was a big wuss? Huh?"

Don't these people realise that not twenty years earlier men were getting around in make-up and powdered wigs? LeFroy looks like some dude from Gladiators by comparison.

No bloke will ever be as good as Mr Darcy, just as no chick will ever be as awesome as Princess Leia in the gold bikini (or whatever your bag is). So just deal with it fellas, all right? The cheap shots are beneath you.

See that's why they cast the wonderfully delightfully delicious James McAvoy as James LeFroy in "Becoming Jane". Cheeky and fine, rather than proud and brooding. I do love Colin Firth, but he's not the ONLY type of yummy man out there.

"Mr. Darcy appeals to every woman not only for being is rich, handsome, and a gentleman, but because the great man's pride and consequence all toppled to one woman. What woman could not pique themselves upon that?"

I have had some pretty upset friends when I dared suggest that I found Matthew Macfadyen from the 2005 Keira Knightley version a much more interesting Mr Darcy, if only for the fact that he had a dark/prickly side that was far more believable than Colin Firth. Colin Firth was never mean enough for me to believe you would say he had a bad attitude - you have to be pretty brooding for people to say so if you have THAT much money!

The irony is, discount some level of artistic license attributed to the painter, put the dude in a pair of jeans and take a black and white picture, and he could have been in a Calvin Klein ad a few years back...